There was still a copy of Tuesday's paper in the St Mungo's Hospital reception. His own face from when he'd finally walked free from Azkaban from Charon's Point stared out from the enchanted paper, taken on Monday, the first day of the month. Twelve years it had been since he'd been taken across the North Sea and locked away.

His sister had been none too pleased to have him back with the family. He'd been left on the doorstep, the door unopened to the Bombay household. Well, he couldn't blame, her, Cynthia had always had standards, something her daughter, Lawrence's niece had managed to meet from what he remembered of the girl.

Though through the door, it hadn't been too clear if his younger sister had been more upset over his ex-convict status, or the fact he'd lost his left hand and the disfigurement scared her. It had been his wand hand, and he'd got used to using his right hand for everything in the past decade. Since being a free man, he had recouped what little funds Gringotts still retained for him in his frozen account, and had purchased a wand that would do. Nothing special, with luck through his time as an auror, he had practised magic with both hands though he was very rusty.

However, now he was out, it was time to see what could be done about the loss of limb. Magic had moved on in twelve years, hadn't it? It just so happened clever little Hannah had grown up to be a healer, and apparently a very fine one at that.

"You've grown.... a bit." Lawrence greeted on setting his eyes upon his niece. "How lovely to see you after all these years." He had adopted his 'reformed criminal' stance that had done him so much good in getting an earlier release, his hand was firmly in the pocket of his coat which had seen better days - second hand from a shop in Diagon. Your belongings tended to go missing if you were an Azkaban prisoner.
"Destroyed me to think I wasn't there for you all."

Hannah was quite short, though it was clear she meant business from a distance. The family reunion line wasn't going to wash.
"Your mother suggested -" The wizard paused, put a finger to his lips and then rephrased, "Your mother didn't suggest, but may have mentioned you were a healer through the locked front door. I'm in need of a little repair, wonder if you might suggest one of your colleagues in the right area."

The paper hadn’t lied. Neither had the welcome witch that had summoned her down to the reception. Lawrence Musgrave stood before her as plain as day, as alive as ever. He seemed thinner than she remembered; paler as well. Her alert gaze swept over the wizard, expression plain, unchanging. The coat he wore looked moth eaten, old and his eyes seemed hollower than that of the uncle she remembered.

But Hannah Bombay hadn’t seen her uncle in 12 years. She hadn’t even heard his name mentioned since his incarceration after the war. The disdain he’d caused her mother had made the name ‘Uncle Lawrence’ forbidden in their home and Cynthia had never told her what he’d done. Why she refused to even mention him. Surely just a stint in Azkaban couldn’t stop her mother from annoying a family member?

Now she’d read the paper and now she had a better idea why dear old Uncle Lawrence had spent 12 years inside. She wasn’t exactly sure she wanted to be in his company.
“One continues growing after reaching 12 years old, uncle.” A calm response came while the healer refused to take her eyes of the wizard that seemed so different to the last time she’d seen him.

Was he reformed? Well behaved and no longer looking for any trouble? He’d been an auror, Hannah had remembered trying to steal his shiny golden badge when she was a child, or pretending to heal Auror Musgrave when he’d been attacked by an evil wizard.

A twitch momentarily changed Bombay’s expression. He needed something. Or course. Why else pay his niece a visit after so long?

“That would depend on what needs repairing.”

"From the duckling to the swan," Lawrence agreed to his niece's remark about her growing since he had been put away. "No, that's not fair, you were never a duckling, lucky girl." He managed a fond smile, which improved his features no end, though he still looked tired, under-nourished and older than he was.

"Well," Hannah's uncle replied to the query about what exactly needed repairing. He raised his left shoulder slightly and slid his left arm out of his coat pocket, where it was clear a hand wasn't protruding from the coat sleeve, although it was full. He tugged back the sleeve with his right hand, revealing the end of his arm which had healed over to form a stump just above where his wrist bones once had been.

"That's pretty much it. Or was it. They didn't just lock us up in Azkaban after the war." He sighed gently, and glanced about himself briefly at any audience. "One of the guards lobbed it off, decided he knew better." His face twisted into a grimace at the memory of it happening - the searing pain that had taken his breath away, blacking out at the sight of the blood and the shock. Being helpless. It was still quite clear in his memories.

That smile. That was the uncle she remembered. The uncle she’d been excited to see as a child. The uncle her mother had disowned when he’d been arrested and sent to Azkaban. The smile brought back an old glow which rested in his bright eyes for a moment, a familiar warmness. Hannah herself couldn’t help but offer a tweak of her lips, a tiny smile in return.

But any remnants of her own smile vanished when the reason for his visit was quite literally shown to her. Lips parted ever so slightly as she stared at where the hand should have been. It wasn’t the lack of hand that unnerved her. Hannah had seen far worse, she’d treated worse, she’d had her own arm torn at by a werewolf. But on her uncle it surprised her, and she wasted no time in stepping closer to him and grasping his arm, pulling the sleeve of his coat down for closer examination regardless of the crowd around them.

“You were left handed.” She commented, remembering from the past. Strangely she had a habit of picking out strange facts; a habit which had always intrigued Johann.  “Was this when you were….incarcerated?” His coat sleeve was pulled back up and she released his arm.

Gaze now back on Lawrence’s, Hannah’s lips pursed as she considered his predicament.
“Shall we go somewhere more private, Mr Musgrave?” She questioned, fully aware of the sets of eyes upon her, a charged werewolf and her recently released one handed uncle.

Bright as a button, she remembered after all these years - he was very impressed. He let her take his arm - there wasn't too much to see these days, the scars were still there, but had begun to fade with time.

"If you have somewhere," The wizard agreed to the suggestion of going elsewhere. Much as he was glad to be out, people with wands and his face on the newspaper, and their recently resurfaced memories of what he'd done during the last war were making him feel uncomfortable. Eyes prickled on the back of his neck, that he didn't deserve attention. He was oblivious to Hannah's additional reasoning at that moment. News didn't get back to Azkaban and he didn't trust what did.

He followed Hannah away, looking back over his shoulder as humbly as he could, a woman a decade or two older than him was staring without reservation at him, glaring at him, angry. He couldn't place her, time had weathered her face, and he'd been party to so many interrogations in those dark months. Swallowing audibly, he straightened his shoulders and slipped out of sight with his niece.

"You remember, that's impressive. You always were the brightest little witch, and my favourite niece." Not to mention, only... "I'd say you gleaned, but in such a short time, and with having used my right hand exclusively for all these years, its probably not so obvious. Hmm?"

His eyes took in the room they'd stepped into, instinctively looking for exits. Wide open spaces were both so very lovely, and also very daunting after a cell.

"It happened within weeks of arriving. If living in a stone cell in the middle of the North Sea weren't enough to contend with, one of the guards who replaced the dementors relieved me of my wand hand. He wasn't authorised to, if you get my drift, but they didn't offer to bring me here to reattach it." He absentmindedly rubbed at the end of his arm and shrugged. "Probably made a good dinner for some sea creature."

He straightened out the cuff of the shirt beneath the coat and composed his face for his niece.
"I just wondered if there was much that could be done - I don't imagine it can be regrown, but is there anything that can be done?" Uncle Lawrence asked with utter seriousness.

Eyes on her had unfortunately become a regular occurrence. For a witch that liked to avoid people and attention she had certainly attracted a lot. And stood with someone that had been tried, convicted and imprisoned for aiding Death Eaters in trials and torture, the glares were harsher, less concealed and more numerous. But surely people didn’t know her relationship with the wizard. He had a different name, messy unkempt hair and blue eyes instead of brown. As much as she had once liked her uncle, Hannah wasn’t sure she wanted to be associated with him now.

Did she want him knowing that she really remembered all these things? As she walked from the large reception, leading them down a corridor and into a cubicle, Hannah turned her head to glance at him. “Your left arm is marginally larger, noticeable even through the jacket. Decades of usage won’t vanish over 12 years.” Normally she didn’t offer explanations for her observations but he was her uncle, a relative she’d once very much liked.

Once in the cubicle, Hannah pulled the curtain closed to give them a small amount of privacy from the various eyes that had been staring at them. He talked the entire way, explaining what had happened and the thought made Hannah feel ever so slightly queasy. It wasn’t the loss of his hand, more the loss of his power. The vulnerability, the violation of his rights by the prison’s personnel, much like what had happened to her at the hands of the ministry.

“You can’t regrow it, Uncle Lawrence.” The healer informed her uncle as she lifted herself to sit on the bed, watching him carefully. “Well, an attempt could be made. The likelihood of you ending up with a wrist, palm, four fingers and thumb though? Non-existent. The most we could hope for after this long is a mass with a finger or two, perhaps a nail sprouting out somewhere irregular.”

Her bright eyed gaze fell once more on her uncle, her expression revealing a curiosity mixed with seriousness. “What did you do to make him want to chop it off? Is it because of what you did to those people?” She’d seen the way that woman had been looking at him in the reception.

The description of how he might regrow it was almost as bad as being without. Actually, worse.

“What did you do to make him want to chop it off? Is it because of what you did to those people?”

Lawrence met his niece's eyes with a look of surprise that she'd asked outright about it. He'd not really been asked about it, but then again he'd been stuck in a fortress for most of the time since, bar the last few days. He'd have to get used to it.

"He just didn't like the fact I had been an auror. Thought it was worse that I had been put in Azkaban than anyone else, that for my fall from grace I deserved worse punishment. Either that, or he really didn't like aurors. I never got to find out - I was a bit busy being unconscious in a pool of blood, but these things happen at Azkaban." Lawrence noticed Hannah didn't really flinch. Merlin, she made a good healer.

"But don't let it worry you," Her uncle assured her, needlessly, "How are you, how are your parents?"

“It doesn’t.” Hannah plainly said in response to him telling her not to worry. It really didn’t worry her how he’d lost his hand. She had simply been curious. It wasn’t often she saw someone with a hand chopped off manually. Most issues that came into the St Mungo’s were not quite so muggle. Most injuries were caused by magic gone awry, hexes and magical creatures. Lawrence’s hand had been chopped clean off, swift and brutally from what she could tell. It had been a sharp blade. That had intrigued her. His crimes intrigued her. But not enough to worry. What her Uncle Lawrence did was his own business. That was something her mother still had to learn.

“I don’t know how my parents are.” The witch folded her arms, watching the wizard from her perch upon the bed. “Alive I presume.” Another thing she didn’t really care about.

“I’m…” where was the word? “satisfactory.” Did that sum up her present situation? Her expression softened with thought. “Things have been better. But they could be worse. Are you planning on reoffending?”

"You have never been satisfactory, Hannah." Lawrence replied without hesitating. "I was always very proud of you, and well, to see you a healer now, and... well, grown up, I am still very proud of you." This genuine sentiment was expressed with an outstretching of his right hand towards her, but it fell short, touching her would be so very awkward after all this time. She wasn't the little girl who pretended to patch him up with scarves and old bandages.

"No, not at all. I'm not going back to Azkaban. Merlin, I wouldn't write it up for a holiday destination - have you seen it?" He gestured with his hand, and his other arm shoved itself back into the coat pocket.
"No, I've learned my lesson, I was an idiot back in the war, but I was desperate, Hannah. It wasn't pretty, I thought I didn't have a choice, but the wizengamot thought I had. They weren't the ones with a Death Eater with a wand to their head." Lawrence sighed.

"I'm not proud of me either. I'm not here for forgiveness, I'd just rather like to see if I can do something about my lost hand."

Lawrence denied any intentions of returning to Azkaban and Hannah’s lips pursed with discomfort when he’d asked if she’d seen it. According to Knox, her outburst those months ago in the courtroom could have meant her answer to that question was yes. In fact, she may even have seen her criminal one handed uncle within the wall of the wizarding prison. She had seen pictures. She’d read about it. That was as close as she ever wished to get.

Whatever his story was, whatever his plea was, the factwas that the ministry had released Lawrence because he’d paid his time and possibly learnt a lesson. Time would tell. But did she want to spend time with a convicted criminal and exauror when she was so hated by society without his help? Yet he was obviously unaware of the truth, Azkaban didn’t exactly offer the latest editions of the daily prophet to its inmates. What would he say if he did know? Would he still be proud?

“No matter your crime you shouldn’t have been relieved of a hand.” The healer didn’t move from the bed. She just continued to watch her uncle through bright brown eyes, analysing his features, his messy hair so much like Johann’s, and his hooded eyes, framed with dark rings. This after a few nights back home displayed just how much Azkaban had changed the wizard from what she’d once known all those years ago.

“I don’t really specialise in lost body parts…” She muttered. “I work in creature injuries. My…skills are better utilised there. But I can look into options for you. It depends what you want out of it. For example, I once read about a wizard with a wand within his arm” she gestured using her hands and her left arm, leaving the robes to slip down her forearm. “He didn’t have the hand. The wand was pushed into his arm, a small amount protruding. Apparently the functionality was superb.”

"Thank you," Lawrence replied to her statement of support, "I'm glad you agree."

The embedded wand was beyond what he'd considered, and the way she delivered it made him proud. The genes that set him apart from his sister had perhaps reappeared in Hannah, but it was more likely the qualities from her father that Lawrence was identifying with.

"I'd not drop my wand, that's for sure." Her uncle agreed, eyebrows raised. He ruffled his ragged hair with his hand and pondered.

"That's quite drastic though, I'm sure I'll get quite adept with casting with the right, ultimately. Anything to grip or hold on the left wouldn't go amiss, but as you say, its not your area. I'll take any recommendation of a healer I might trust here though, other than you, of course."

Hit with a moment of nostalgia over how he had missed her teenage years and had seen her skip from child to adult, he added, "My Hannah. Never Annie. Still the same?"

Adapting couldn’t be fun. Lawrence had once been an auror. He’d been more than capable at performing magic before the loss of his wand hand and a twelve year gap in practice. She no longer thought much of the once magically adept and brave wizard’s ability to cast a decent spell. Magic naturally favoured a side of the body, a dominant side of the body. She, just like her uncle was left handed, she didn’t even wish to consider the prospect of being forced to use her other arm. Suddenly this wizard was very vulnerable.

She did have a further suggestion for him but it seemed Lawrence wanted to reconfirm her name. The distaste over the name Annie was shown in a twitch of her lip before she nodded. “Still the same. And so is my mother.” Unlike her mother, Uncle Lawrence had always seemed to listen to her, understood she didn’t want or appreciate a nick name. It would be like her mother calling him Lozzer or something worse.

“So you visited mum?” Hannah’s legs hung from the bed, not reaching anywhere close to the floor despite her tall heels. She probably hadn’t actually grown in height since her uncle’s incarceration and this suddenly made her feel rather young.
“Your name became illegal at home when you got sent down. An embarrassment to the oh so pure Musgrave family. Do you have somewhere to stay? I can’t imagine she’d have let you in.” Her analytical gaze once more swept over the wizard. “You need a good haircut.”

Lawrence sighed, and leaned against the bed looking dejected. He gave an equally hollow 'hah' to the the comment about being an embarrassment. That sounded about right for his sister, standards and all. He had felt much the same, but now he didn't have a choice.

"If you call standing on the doorstep talking to a locked door a 'visit', then yes." Lawrence agreed, "No, she didn't let me in, didn't want to speak to me. I've been kipping in a hostel, inflation's not been good in the last decade, and what little Gringotts kept for me isn't going far."

He'd once had a nice place rented, but he'd been released to find the landlord had sold all of the contents of it that remained after MLE searched it, to pay off his final rent before letting it again. The first night in the hostel, sharing a bare room with two stinking wizards, one of whom seemed to spout gobbledygook, he'd brooded over it, about hunting down his former landlord to extort the money.

"Haircut, one day, yes. I'm more likely to singe it off at the moment." He gestured with his right hand, flicking it up past his head, "distractions, adjustments. In some ways it was simpler inside, I hadn't realised how much I'd lost in a general quality of living outside of there. I'll figure it out." He looked to Hannah and shook his head.

"Sorry, here I am whining and you're working. Thanks for the advice, I'll come back and see about the hand another time, make an appointment with one of the other healers." Lawrence apologised and stood up properly again, sliding his hand back into his pocket.

Cynthia Bombay’s refusal to even speak to her brother didn’t surprise Hannah. Her mother would have thought Lawrence had only ventured around to rub her nose in the trouble he’d caused the family. It was always about her. It had been about her and the embarrassment Hannah obviously wanted to cause when she’d gotten in trouble with the ministry and been found guilty of breaking werewolf law. Now the poor Mrs Bombay had two troublesome, inconsiderate relatives to deal with and Hannah was certain she’d be hearing about it soon enough. Especially now that her mother knew where she lived.

“Wait a moment.” Hannah stood up off the bed and took a quill in her hand that had previously been behind her ear, holding some long hair back. She took up some parchment from the bedside table and began to write in her neat, perfectly formed scripture.

“You can’t stay at a hostel. They’re full of undesirables…” the young healer looked up at her uncle and offered a small smile. “More so than you, Uncle.” It was very possible at this moment that Hannah Bombay had a tiny sense of humour deep down somewhere. “This is my address. It’s a muggle building so try to blend in. I am due to finish work at 7. I will meet you there. You can feed Herbert while you wait.”

The small note was offered to her uncle and Hannah dipped a hand into her robe pocket, pulling out a key which she also offered. “I trust you can figure out the protection spells given your experience. They’re not exactly my forté.”

"Herbert?" Lawrence asked, not sure whether to expect a gerbil or a great dane behind Hannah's front door.

"Hannah, blimey, I didn't come to ask this - I, feel a bit like I'm taking advantage here." He raised his hand to her in surprise at the gesture, but read that Hannah Bombay did not do things without consideration.

"Only if you're absolutely sure."

He accepted the key and parchment with as much dexterity as he could with one hand, folding the parchment against his side and flattening it with his fingertips before accepting the key for ease.

"Unless you've discovered a few new ones in recent years, I'll be fine." He assured his niece, "As long as nobody thinks I'm breaking and entering. I've got form these days, I'm sure Law Enforcement would love to pick me up for something like dropping litter, just to get at me."

He sighed, and shook his head.
"Sorry, sorry, I'll leave you be. Seven you say?"